Glycyrrhetinic acid (GA) is a natural product with certain antitumor activity. In order to enhance the cytotoxicity, a total of eighteen derivatives of GA were designed and synthesized. Their cytotoxicity against MDA-MB-231cells (human breast cancer cells) and HeLa cells (human cervical cancer cells), were evaluated by the MTT method (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide). The results indicated that these target compounds have a wide molar activity range and some of them show better activity than the commercial drugs gefitinib and doxorubicin. Compound 6g induces apoptosis of 7, 10 and 44% of MDA-MB-231 cells at 5, 10, and 20 µM, respectively.
Keywords: MDA-MB-231; apoptosis; cytotoxicity; glycyrrhetinic acid.